I had a chance to talk to some people at permissionTV. They have some really nice services and software. In particular I was very interested in their PDK, Permission TV Platform Development Kit. It made me think of think specifically of the pros/cons between paying to license something like this or building on an open source project like JV FLV Media Player.

Here's a screenshot of one of our sites at #3 for a Google search on DRTV. Personally I'm rooting for Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage TV to capture the top spot for DRTV.

I've been having some interesting conversations with Jolie O'Dell and Mary Fahncke about the role of new media, in particular in traditional DRTV companies. We've been sharing some link love and you can see links to their sites at the blog/vlog rolls at the bottom of the Hawthorne Videoactive Report.

This is a really weird move for Taco Bell.  The content doesn't really relate but the implementation is cool.  You can pick locations and limited actions for the model and then proceed to take your own takeaway photographs from the the shoot.  The controls are limited to zooming in and cropping, but the play control sells through.  I can't help but notice it looks remarkably close the the Pokemon game that came out for 64 awhile back.  Check it out:
http://www.directdaniella.com/
 
 

www.hawthorneblog.mobi serves up a mobile version of this site using a Drupal theme, http://drupal.org/project/mobi, and module, http://drupal.org/project/mobi_loader. I had to hack the module to work in Drupal 6.0 and tweak the theme.
 

Call me a skeptic, but the latest DRTV products "review site" leaves me a bit underwhelmed. I came across AsSeenOnTV.info (http://www.asotv.info/) while trolling through YouTube. The comment there suggested that this new product review site had Web 2.0 geneaology, so excitedly I clicked, and pfffft ... nada. No *consumer* reviews, no networking, no commenting.
 

Are you a design snob? You COULD scour the interweb looking for great ideas to steal or just visit:http://www.thefwa.com/ or one of the many best of the best award sites which has done all the digging for you. 
 
A good designer of course shouldn't need to steal anything, but it doesn't hurt to get inspired by what others are doing.

Check out this site, which appears to be from the U.K. version of the Pork Producers board.
    
 http://www.pigsareworthit.com/lyrics.html
 
I confess that I find the "Stand By Your Man" spoof somewhat amusing, but what I really like is the "iPig player." Everybody knows how to work one of those, right? Even better, it works.